Rise and fall of Islamic political thought

Dr Azzam S Tamimi LONDON

Islamia

Islamia/The Brunei Times

he contemporary scholars over the past two centuries have also grappled with the question of Islamic governance and its position with the democracy of the West. This paper surveys the growth and various phases of and influences on the concept of democracy in the Islamic political thought over the last two centuries. Among the thinkers covered in Tamimis survey are Rifaa Tahtawi (1801-73), Khairuddin at-Tunis (1810-99), Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838-97), Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), Abdurrahman al-Kawakibi (1849-1903), Rashid Rida (1865-1935), Hasan al-Banna (1904-49), Ali Abd Ar-Raziq (18881966), Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), Said Hawwa, and Malik Bennabi (190573). Reference is also made to the influence of Sayyid Mawdudi (190379), on the thought of Sayyid Qutb. The paper traces also the bearing of Bennabis thought on Rachid Ghannouchi and on the contemporary Islamic movements.

The relationship between religion and despotism and what he calls the inseparable tie between politics and religion are also discussed. While stressing that Islam as a religion is not responsible for the forms of despotic government that have emerged and reigned in its name, Al-Kawakibi concludes that Allah, the omniwise, has intended nations to be responsible for the actions of those whom they choose to be governed by. When a nation fails in its duty, God causes it to be subdued by another nation that will govern it, just as happens in a court of law when a minor or an incompetent is put under the care of a curator. When, on the other hand, a nation matures and appreciates the value of liberty, it will restore its might; and this is only fair. The entire book is an attempt to explain the reasons why the Muslim umma declined and became easy prey for 19th-century colonial powers.

Tahtawi, known as the father of Egyptian democracy, shortly after his return to Cairo from Paris published his first book, Takhlis Al-Ibriz Ila Talkhis Bariz, in 1834. The book summarised his observations of the manners and customs of the modern French, and praised the concept of democracy as he saw it in France and as he witnessed its defence and reassertion through the 1830 Revolution against King Charles X. Tahtawi tried to show that the democratic concept he was explaining to his readers was compatible with the law of Islam. He compared political pluralism to forms of ideological and jurisprudential pluralism that existed in the Islamic experience: Religious freedom is the freedom of belief, of opinion and of sect, provided it does not contradict the fundamentals of religion . . . The same would apply to the freedom of political practice and opinion by leading administrators, who endeavour to interpret and apply rules and provisions in accordance with the laws of their own countries. Khairuddin At-Tunisi (1810-99), leader of the 19th-century reform movement in Tunisia, who, in 1867, formulated a general plan for reform in a book entitled Aqwam Al-Masalik Fi Taqwim Al- Mamalik (The Straight Path to Reforming Governments). While appealing to politicians and scholars of his time to seek all possible means in order to improve

Compatible

Ugandan Muslims perform Solat at the musalla of a boxing training camp. Picture Reuters

A Turkish touches the flag in Istanbul. The demise of Khilafah in Turkey 1924 changed Islamic political thought. Picture: AFP

the status of the community and develop its civility, At-Tunisi warned the general Muslim public against shunning the experiences of other nations on the basis of the misconception that all the writings, inventions, experiences or attitudes of non-Muslims should be rejected or disregarded. Khairuddin further called for an end to absolutist rule, which he blamed for the oppression of nations and the destruction of civilizations.

No justice

In his search for the causes of decline in the Muslim world, Jamal adDin Al-Afghani (1838-97) diagnosed that it was due to the absence of adl (justice) and syura (council) and nonadherence by the government to the constitution. One of his demands was that the people should be allowed to assume their political and social role by participating in governing through syura and elections. In an article entitledThe Despotic Government, pub-

lished in Misr on 14 February 1879, Al-Afghani attributed the decline to despotism which is the reason why thinkers in the Eastern (Muslim) countries could not enlighten the public about the essence and virtues of the republican government. For those governed by it, he stresses, it is a source of happiness and pride. To Al-Afghani, a republican government is a restricted government that is accountable to the public, and that is thus the antithesis of the absolutist one. It is a government that consults the governed, relieves them of the burdens laid upon them by despotic governments and lifts them from the state of decay to the first level of perfection. Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) believed that Islams relationship with the modern age was the most crucial issue that Islamic communities needed to deal with. In an attempt to reconcile Islamic ideas with Western ones, he suggested that

maslaha (interest) in Islamic thought corresponded to manfaa (utility) in Western thought. Similarly, he equated syura with democracy and ijma with consensus.

Addressing the question of authority, Abduh denied the existence of a theocracy in Islam and insisted that the authority of the hakim (governor) or that of the qadi (judge) or that of the mufti, was civil. He believed that ijtihad should be revived because . . . emerging priorities and problems, which are new to the Islamic thought, need to be addressed. Abdurrahman Al-Kawakibi (1849-1903) wrote two books on the subject, Tabai Al- Istibdad (The Characteristics of Tyranny) and Umm Al-Qura (The Mother of Villages). The first is dedicated to defining despotism and explaining the various forms it may take, with much of the discussion focusing on political despotism.

Theocracy

Muhammad Rashid Rida (18651935) saw that the reason for the backwardness of the umma was that . . . the Muslims have lost the truth of their religion, and this has been encouraged by bad political rulers, for the true Islam involves two things, acceptance of the unity of God and consultation in matters of State, and despotic rulers have tried to make Muslims forget the second by encouraging them to abandon the first. He stressed that the greatest lesson the people of the Orient can learn from Europeans is to know what government should be like. In his book Al-Khilafa he stresses that Islam is guidance, mercy and social-civic policy. About the latter, which he seems to use as a synonym for politics, he says: As for the socialcivic policy, Islam has laid its foundations (which) include that authority belongs to the umma, that decisionmaking is through shura, that the government is a form of a republic, that the ruler is not favoured in a court of law to the layman - for he is only employed to implement Syariah and public opinion, and that the purpose of this policy is to preserve religion and serve the interests of the public . . . Nineteenth-century Islamic political thinkers, who were clearly influenced by European democratic thought and practice, tried to establish a resemblance between democracy and the Islamic concept of syura.

Backwardness

An excerpt from Democracy in Islamic Political Thought (1997). Dr Tamimi is the director of the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought (IIPT) IIPT